


I’m Missing The Sound Of Your Heart Beating

by Ourladyofresurrection



Series: Writers Month 2019 [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Bookshop scene, Crowley reminiscing about his relationship with Aziraphale, Day Four of Writers Month 2019, Direct quotes from book, Heavily canon-compliant, M/M, NSFW Scene, non-linear, prompt: sound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 15:53:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20156152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ourladyofresurrection/pseuds/Ourladyofresurrection
Summary: Listen to ‘Sound of Your Heart’ by Shawn Hook while reading for best effect.Day 5 of Writers Month 2019, prompt: soundOr in which Crowley reminisces about memories with Aziraphale after the bookshop scene when he’s presumed dead.





	I’m Missing The Sound Of Your Heart Beating

> ** _ You were my courage. My sword and shield. _ **

Crowley flicked his tongue out, once, twice, and then a third time for good measure. His slitted eyes peering up over the wall of Eden, where an angel was perched atop the stone, reeking of grace and goodness. It singed his nose, burned his eyes, the goodness. As a demon, it shouldn’t be a surprise, as a fallen angel it was an unwelcome reminder that he too, could have been an angel. Had been, even. Could have stayed that way, if he were anyone else. There was no way to describe the angel in ways that would seem impressive to anyone still under the impression that angels—at the root of it, were the ultimate Good.  To fully visualize how starkly the angel stood out amongst the others, you would need to imagine his breed as the ultimate Evil. Really, it wasn’t all that much of a stretch.

Most angels were corrupt. Not fallen— but corrupt. Jaded. Wayward. Unscrupulous. Dishonorable. Deceitful. Callous. Cruel.

But this angel was ethereal, glowing pale under the new Sun, golden curls showing no signs of unfurling, like a perfectly tied ribbon on the greatest gift in the world. His sheer, billowy robe pooled around his feet, slinking elegantly off his shoulders as he stared into the distance, looking rapt at the new world.  With a cock of a head, Crowley slunk up beside him, serpentine features melting away— all but his eyes, which remained slit and golden yellow in a way that would disturb most people. He was clad in similar robes to Aziraphale— identical in almost every way except for the endless spans of black that practically screamed ‘fallen.’

“Well, that went down like a lead balloon,” he remarked, eyes flicking a bit nervously to Aziraphale, who rather looked quite neutral for someone standing next to a demon.

He looked as though he had other troubles on his mind that distracted him from the matter at hand, which was rich, coming from someone who just witnessed a human-shaped creature morph out of a snake.

“Oh. Yes, it did, rather.”

Crowley bit his lip, trying to trail the angel’s eyes as he slowly said:

“Bit of an overreaction, if you ask me. First offense and everything. And I can’t see what’s so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil, anyway.”

Aziraphale looked scandalized at this but made no attempt to shift away from the snake as he did a double-take and muttered:

“It must _be_ bad, Crawley. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have tempted them into it.”

Crowley shrugged noncommittally, “They just said, ‘Get up there and make some trouble.’ ”

“Obviously. You’re a demon, it’s what you _do.”_

Crowley made a sound in the back of his throat that didn’t really mean much at all,  “Not very subtle of the Almighty, though. Fruit tree in the middle of a garden, with a ‘don’t touch’ sign. I mean, why not put it on top of a high mountain or the moon? Makes you wonder what God’s really planning.”  Crowley knew he was playing with fire, and judging by the angel’s hasty response, he thought correct.

“Best not to speculate. It’s all part of the Great Plan,” said Aziraphale, in a way a parent might pacify a fussing child in the backseat with a promise of Disneyland, “It’s ineffable.”

Crowley’s eyes bulged in mock-surprise, having been on the receiving end of the wonderfully bullshit obscurity of the Great _Blasted_ Plan for millennia. 

“The Great Plan’s ineffable?”

“Exactly,” the angel, who’s name was Aziraphale- said, missing the blatant sarcasm, “there’s Right and there’s Wrong. If you do Wrong when you’re told to do Right, you deserve to be punished. Er—“ he cut himself off.

An awkward silence followed. If awkwardness was a palpable feeling for divine beings, which was up for debate.  The conversation carried the air of perhaps someone distastefully bringing up their atheist beliefs at a funeral.

In the distance, thunder crackled.

Crowley shook his head, “Didn’t you have a flaming sword?”

“Er...” the angel stalled, like a child caught stealing from the cookie jar, only he was an angel, and the figurative cookie jar was deviancy in ethereal code.

“You did,” Crowley pushed, “It was flaming like anything. What happened to it?”

“Er...”

“Lost it already, have you?” Crowley joked, what fun would it be if an angel lost a flaming sword a day after being assigned it as if one might miraculously lose a pencil the first day of school.

The angel muttered something inaudible.

“You what?”

Aziraphale fumed, face red with embarrassment, casting a nervous look up above.

“I_ gave it away!”_

Crowley practically preened at this, mouth agape as the angel swallowed, looking rather shameful of the crowd he ended up standing beside. Associating with the enemy, oh the Almighty would be pissed, he thought with a smile.

“They looked so miserable. And there are vicious animals, and it’s going to be cold out there, and she’s expecting _already__,”_ he added with the offended zeal of an angel who didn’t quite understand how babies came to be.

“And I said, here you go, flaming sword, don’t thank me, and don’t let the sun go down on you here...I do hope I didn’t do the wrong thing.”

Crowley shook his head, laughing drily, “You’re an _angel._ I don’t think you  _can_ do the wrong thing.”

Aziraphale, once again missing the sarcasm laden in the demon’s voice, softened at this with the unbridled haste of someone who really didn’t want to be staring down the barrel of the metaphorical locked and loaded Blame Gun. 

"Oh. Oh, thank you. It's been worrying me."

A little bit in the distance, Adam slices through a lion with the burning sword which, miraculously, didn’t cauterize the wound as it should have. Aziraphale flinched slightly. Crowley looked on.

“I’ve been worrying too,” he said, “What if I did the right thing, with the whole eat-the-apple business? A demon can get into a lot of trouble for doing the right thing.”

Aziraphale simply hummed at this noncommittal.

“Funny if we both got it wrong, eh? If I did the good thing and you did the bad one.”

“No!” Aziraphale admonished, “Not funny at all.”

The skies opened up, and the first-ever rain started to fall from the sky. The angel held up one of his feathered wings, offering shelter to the shivering demon.  He slunk under his warmth and they shared tentative glances as they watched the first sin come about in the world.

Figuratively, the clock had just begun to tick.

* * *

> ** _ Grace under pressure, my wall of steel. _ **

The Bentley comes to a screeching halt, wheels hardly having a chance to stop spinning before they burn up against the tarmac, Crowley exits—effortlessly cool facade crumbling in the haste of things.

“Aziraphale!” he calls out, to which the angel— admittedly, reluctantly swivels around to look at him.

“I’m sorry, I apologize. Whatever I said. I didn’t mean it. Work with me, I’m apologizing here. Yes. Good,” he rambled frantically, gesturing at the Bentley parked near the curb, “Get in the car.”

“What? No!” 

“‘Forces of Hell,” he said raggedly, “They’ve figured out it was my fault. We can go off together. Alpha Centauri, spare planets up there. Nobody will notice us.”

Aziraphale shook his head, looking as conflicted as he was resigned.

“Crowley, you’re being ridiculous,” he said, “I’m quite sure that if I can just reach the right people, I can get this all sorted out.”

“There aren’t any ‘right people’. There’s just God moving in mysterious ways and _NOT TALKING TO ANY OF US,_” he said desperately.

“Well, yes,” said Aziraphale, calm as ever, “That’s why I’m going to have a word with the Almighty, and then the Almighty will fix it.”

“That won’t happen ,” Crowley near-sobbed of frustration, “You’re so clever. How can somebody as clever as you be so _stupid_ _? _ ” lamenting more to himself than Aziraphale at this point.

Aziraphale looks pointedly at him, “I forgive you!”

“Oh,” Crowley groaned, angrily storming off to his car, hanging over the side of it, “I’m going HOME, angel, I’m getting my stuff. And I’m leaving.  And when I’m off in the stars, I, I won’t even think about you!”

As Crowley climbed in the driver’s seat and drove away, he briefly caught sight of Aziraphale’s upset face, a stranger comforting him.

“I’ve been there. _You’re better off without him.”_

* * *

_ _

> _ ** I was a stone, weighing us down, y**_ _**ou were the angel I chained to the ground ** _

The old bandstand, St. James’s Park. The classic meet up spot for the angel and the demon over the years, only tonight was the kind of night that location was nothing but a frame of mind and a soundtrack to life’s greatest perils.

“Any news?” Crowley called to Aziraphale, who was looking rather flighty under the structure.

“Um. What kind of news would that be?”

“Well? Do you have the missing Antichrist’s name, address and shoe size yet?”

If Crowley had been looking closely enough and if he had reason to believe the angel was withholding information from him, he might have noticed the guilty shift in Aziraphale’s demeanor.

“Shoe size? Why would I have his shoe size?”

“'S a joke,” Crowley sighed, “I’ve got nothing either.”

“It’s the Great Plan, Crowley,” Aziraphale said reverently.

“For the record,” Crowley drawled, voice raising and becoming more unbridled and non-discerning by the second, “great pustulant mangled bollocks to the Great _Blasted_ Plan.”

“May you be forgiven!” Aziraphale said quickly, casting a nervous glance up above as if the recent events haven’t told him God isn’t listening.

“I won’t be forgiven. Not ever,” the demon said drunkenly, looking bitter, “That’s part of a demon’s job description.  _Unforgivable. That’s what I am.”_

“You were an angel once!” Aziraphale supplied unhelpfully.

“That was a long time ago. We find the boy. My agents can do it...”

“And then what? We eliminate him?”

“Well...” Crowley hesitated, “somebody does. I’m not personally up for killing kids.”

“You’re the demon, I’m the nice one. I don’t have to kill kids.”

“Uh-uh.”

“If you kill him, then the world gets a reprieve,” Aziraphale protested, before adding sulkily, “and Heaven does not have _blood_ on its hands.”

“No blood on your hands?” Crowley admonished, shaking his head, “That’s a bit holier-than-thou, isn’t it?”

“I am a great deal holier than thou. That’s the whole point.”

“Then you should kill the boy yourself,” Crowley offered, “Holi-ly.”

“I’m not killing anybody.”

“This is ridiculous. _You_ are ridiculous. I don’t even know why I’m still talking to you,” muttered Crowley, but his eyes gave away exactly the reason why he was still talking to him.

“Frankly, neither do I.”

“Enough,” Crowley snarled, “I’m leaving.”

“You can’t  leave, _Crowley,” _ he called after him plaintively, _“there isn’t anywhere to go.”_

Crowley gazes back, softening slightly at the undone state of the angel, and walks slightly forward.

“Big universe,” he said softly, “Even if this all ends up in a puddle of burning goo, we could go off together.”

“Go off... _together?"_ Aziraphale murmured, looking hesitant for a moment, before saying, “Listen to yourself.”

“How long have we been friends? Six thousand years?

“Friends?” Aziraphale repeated shrilly, “We aren’t friends. We are an _ANGEL_ and a _DEMON_. We have nothing whatsoever in common,” he looked Crowley up and down briefly before adding, “I don’t even like you,” in a way that meant he most definitely did, in fact, like Crowley.

“You _do_, ” Crowley rolled his eyes, stepping closer to him.

Aziraphale blurted out the next bit with the desperation of a man so loosely clinging to his last remaining bits of self-control that stood between the proverbial apple of Eden and his own lips.

“Even if I knew where the Antichrist was, I wouldn’t tell you. We are on opposite sides!”

_“We’re on our _ _ssside,”_ Crowley hissed, lips curling up over his fanged teeth as he stalked towards Aziraphale with the same rapt ferocity of a predator chasing its prey.

“There isn’t an _‘our_ side,’ Crowley. _Not any more_. It’s  over.”

Crowley stepped back, looking wounded and trying to compute the best course of action in the wake of the bomb that had just been dropped on him that would salvage whatever bits of pride he had left.

“Well. Nyep. Right...” he said, looking rather lost, “Well, then. Have a nice doomsday.”

Behind his back, Aziraphale watched him go for a moment before looking away, holding back tears gathering in his eyes.

* * *

> ** _ I miss the way you undress, I miss your head on my chest. _ **

Hungry mouths seek each other in the dark, dimly lit by a few candles that were threatened to overturn as Crowley shoved Aziraphale back against a wall.

“This...this is a mistake,” Aziraphale panted into his mouth, cut-off moan telling Crowley that he didn’t truly believe there was anything mistaken about this.

Wine seeped slowly through their bloodstreams, flushing their cheeks and warming their bodies in some kind of heady limbo, but neither choosing to sober up as Crowley traced a line up behind his ear.

“Do you truly believe that angel?” he hissed, flicking his forked tongue across the shell of his ear, hot breath fanning over it, dragging his wicked teeth over his pulse point and sucking a bruise there.

Like the apple of Eden. Bruised. Innocent, but the picture of temptation and pure sin.

“W-wicked. Wily old serpent, _demon,_ _”_ he muttered, sounding breathless and pained, threading his fingers through Crowley’s hair and holding him against his neck.

Crowley looked up at him from where he was nuzzled under his chin, nose brushing against his throbbing heartbeat, “_Angel_, ” he said, just as plaintively, “divine. _Pure."_

“ O-oh,” Aziraphale stuttered, clutching Crowley’s shirt like it was a tether to Earth, “Crowley,  _Crowley,_ dear boy—“

Crowley just looked at him, eyes wide and blown out, sunglasses discarded on the ground somewhere.

He leaned in and kissed his angel, pressed as far against him as he could, faces flush together and angled so intimately it hurt, the wall digging into the back of Aziraphale’s shoulders.  It wasn’t so much of a kiss as it was the two divine creatures panting into each others’ mouths, a half-hearted slide of tongues and cacophonic mix of moans and heavy breaths.  Crowley’s hand snaked down his chest to grip the growing bulge in his trousers, ungentle and unforgiving and so lewd Aziraphale couldn’t help but excite at the fact that deep down, Crowley was a demon, as hard as he made it to believe.

Aziraphale whined, gazing up at him plaintively, submissively. Crowley took a shaky breath, stepping back, “Angel, a-are you sure?”

Aziraphale just stared determinedly, softly back at him for a moment, before his fingers gently found the hem of his shirt, lifting it up over his head and slowly sinking to his knees.

Like a prayer, he kneeled at his feet, gazed up reverently at Crowley, and _begged_ _ . _

* * *

> ** _ Can’t stop this bleeding, can’t stop believing that I’m missing the sound of your heart beating. _ **

Dark clouds filled the sky that was indescribable from smog, gathering rain, or endless spans of night. Crowley barrelled down the street, calm and cool front faltering very quickly as he desperately dialed a familiar number.  He hears a crackle on the other end of the receiver and signs in relief before he hears an automated voice say, “THE NUMBER YOU HAVE CALLED IS CURRENTLY BUSY.”

Crowley grits his teeth and accelerates faster, a robotic voice telling him what numbers to press to leave a message fading in the background as blood rushed through his ears.

He hardly waits for his car to stop rolling before getting out, stalking determinedly toward Aziraphale’s bookshop—or rather, what remained of it.

“Are you the owner of this establishment?” a useless firefighter asks.

Crowley, exhausted, angry, and frankly, just heartbroken enough to not give a semblance of a fuck, snarks, “Do I look like I run a bookshop?”

He pushes past the firefighters, ignoring their protests and the bookshop door opens and promptly closes for him, subjecting him to the raging inferno inside.

On a gramophone, Queen’s ‘You’re My Best Friend’ could be heard playing.

_ ‘It’s youuu, you’re all I seeee,'  _ Freddie Mercury crooned over the commotion.

“Aziraphale! Aziraphale! Where the Heaven are you? You idiot. Aziraphale! For Go— for Sa—for SOMEBODY’S SAKE, where ARE you?” he yelled, voice swallowed up by the flames.

_ ‘Ooh, you make me live now, honeyyy’ _

Crowley was growing desperate, the room seeming to spin around him as he coughed.

_ ‘Ooh, you make me live’ _

A blast of water crashed through the window from a firehose, knocking Crowley off his feet on impact and into the smoldering debris.

_ ‘Oh, you’re the best friend that I ever had.’ _

He slowly sat up, hair plastered to his forehead, dark glasses abandoned on the floor as he holds back a sob.

_ ‘I’ve been with you such a long time, you’re my sunshine, and I want you to know that my feelings are true’ _

“You’ve gone,” he said tremulously, “SOMEBODY KILLED MY BEST FRIEND! BASTARDS— ALL OF YOU!”

_ ‘I really love you’ _

He clutches Agnes’ _Nice and Accurate Prophecies_ book to his chest.

_ ‘Oh, you’re my best friend.’ _

Smog overtook the room, and Crowley slumped defeatedly against the wall, tears prickling in the corners of his eyes.

> **_Baby, I’m in love with you, and I’m missing the sound of your heart beating. _ **

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please consider leaving kudos and comments or supporting my others works!
> 
> You can find me here:
> 
> Tumblr:
> 
> @yourlocalshaniac (main blog)
> 
> ~
> 
> [@topmecrowley] (GOOD OMENS SIDEBLOG)
> 
> @topmesteveharrington (Stranger Things sideblog)
> 
> @topmerickygoldsworth (Buzzfeed Unsolved sideblog)
> 
> @ourunholyladyofresurrection (My Chemical Romance sideblog)
> 
> Or on Wattpad @ourladyresurrection
> 
> Feel free to request me at any of the given addresses or inbox me here on AO3!
> 
> :)


End file.
